| General Assembly 2002 :
between interior resistance and allied ammo canisters
Committee members of the Club du Theil were gathered in march 2002, on the Corrèze highs, in Affieux, at the auberge 'lou cantou', near the Gargan Mount.
Winter
ends, spring not yet begun, after the aftermath of all the christmas and new
years party. We gathered around excellent local meals ; for the new year diet,
we will think about it tomorrow, as usua. Great french food, thanks to the auberge
cookman, and great french 'joie de vivre', thanks to the humor of the club members,
and our vice-president first in this humor race.
But as soon as the lunch was over, we were already back to aviation and history ; while an after lunch walk brings us on the Corrèze highs, on the Gargan Mount, local interior resistance forces H.Q. during WWII.
Testimony of the local interior forces fight for freedom against the german army, we decided to take a snapshot of this day in front of the Gargan Mount church ruins.
In
order to help the interior resistance, the allied forces proceded in weapons
and ammunitions canisters droppings to help the Interior French Forces(FFI)
in there fight for freedom. Those missions had a code
name : Operation Cadillac. On july 14 1944 (Bastille day for the french),
around 40 B-17 G of the 447th Bomb Group (8th Air Force) took off from the
Rattlesden airfield at 0300 G.M.T. and dropped 52 tons of canisters in the
South West of France, 16 of these aircrafts had a field next to Gargan Mount
as dropping zone(D.Z.). Theses weapons helped the local communist resistance
forces headed by Col Guigouin during the july 17 to 24 1944 struggles (see
the left picture) and in liberating the whole region.
Maybe this operation will one day be the theme for one of our president's dioramas.
So, aviation, modeling and history, seems, maybe unconsciouly mixed in our very minds!